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Tuesday, September 19, 2017

The Dark Knight III – The Master Race | Comics

Three years have passed since anyone seen The Dark Knight of Gotham City and other heroes have retreated while a Master Race rises.

The Dark Knight has been gone after the fall of Lex Luthor's tyrannical reign and demise of a Joker-like Dick Grayson, who was hell-bent on killing off elderly heroes. Batman has been gone off the grids for three years now and Bruce Wayne is also nowhere to be found. Because of his long absence, many believe that he is dead and not coming back this time.

Someone enters the Batcave to shatter down a display case where the Batsuit was hanging and took it. Suddenly, images of a shrouded figure beating up trigger-happy cops chasing an unarmed suspect blows up on media, who appears to be Batman.

In a forest, Wonder Woman is fighting a giant Minotaur while holding her young son Jonathan on her back to save the natives from it. Upon defeating the creature, Diana heads back to Paradise Island for a sparring session with her daughter Lara, only to learn that she is gone.

Always questioned about her inheritance, she finds Superman inside the Fortress of Solitude, who has willingly frozen himself on an icy throne. Hearing noise, Lara discovers the Bottle City of Kandor, which she then takes to Ray Palmer AKA The Atom and asks for his help to restore the shrunken city of Kandor.

The Dark Knight III – The Master Race | Comics

The Mayor hired a P.R. firm to handle the situation as Commissioner Ellen Yindel is being bombard with question from journalists regarding her thoughts on the return of Batman. Later, as she was thinking about current situation, a sighting of the vigilante alarmed her. With cops in pursuit, the mysterious figure violently fights back when surrounded.

After the angry mob of police was done beating, Yindel unmasks the person and it turns out to be Carrie Kelley in Bat costume, who used to be former Robin. Commissioner asks Carrie about Bruce Wayne's whereabouts and she claims him to be dead.

A badly-beaten Carrie is taken into custody for interrogation but Commissioner Yindel had no success at all. While transferring her to Blackgate, the tank-like Batmobile comes crushing at her rescue and she escapes in it. She returns to Batcave to see Bruce Wayne standing over, waiting for her arrival.

Lara approaches Doctor Palmer with a resident of Kandor named Baal seeking help to restore their city. Ray reveals that his past attempts gone horribly wrong to Lara and Baal but then she storms off hearing her mother's call. When returned to new Amazon city, she engaged in sparring with her mother.

Upon calibrating his shrinking tech and required variables about Kryptonian physiology, Ray takes the Bottle City of Kandor in a desert and brought back Kandor citizens in full-size. He then realized many of them were dead at the hands of a fanatic cult led by Baal's father Quar. Ray is shrunk using his own technology and stepped over by Baal.

His father then obliterates the bottle city and its remaining inhabitants for not following him. Quar makes a demand to the world that he and his followers are to be accepted as Gods or perish. Realizing he is too old to fight them, Bruce pays a visit to Fortress of Solitude.

Artist Andy Kubert (Before Watchmen – Nite Owl, Damian – Son of Batman) draws core story from all issues while Klaus Janson returned to work on tie-in shorts, also set on the same alternate reality of Earth-31 from DC Multiverse.

The Master Race Rises

Whereas "The Dark Knight Returns" kind of expected all readers to assume the worst have happened to our vigilante hero before they even began and "The Dark Knight Strikes Again" just started throwing things at us without any explanation, DKIII actually tries to dive slightly deeper than before while leaving possibilities for a sequel.

Aside from regular primary character of this series, Aquaman, The Flash, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Hawkman and Hawkgirl appeared throughout the story. Hopefully, we will see young Jonathan grow up to be Superboy as his elder sister becomes a Supergirl in this brave-new world.
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